Lunch with friends

A lovely start to the day on Saturday, leaving from Waikanae Beach, I paused in Waikanae at the butcher, where I picked up a lovely assortment of sausages and a very nice looking roast for one. I asked him for a small roast of beef and he brought out a great big one and asked how big and then sliced me off a lovely piece, just the right size. I am looking forward to having a roast dinner soon.

So from there I headed northwards and turned left a couple of times. The first was Te Horo where I headed out to the beach for a look.

		Te Horo Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A lovely spot with an interesting rocky beach with a river flowing outwards.

From there it was back out to the highway and then left again towards Kuku Beach. At the end of the road is a lovely carpark and a very interesting beach. The area is Maori land and they have allowed access and have created a lovely area.

		Kuku Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The wind was quite severe here so I didn’t go too far towards the sea. Certainly a place to explore further next time.

From there it was through to Levin for lunch with Robin and Jenny the Romany Ramblers whom I have talked about often. Jenny had created an awesome lunch of French Onion soup with French Bread croutons with cheese, followed by sausage rolls and lemon muffins.

I arrived at 11am and left about 3:30pm after chatting and trying to solve the issues of the world. Their little ‘village’ is a great little area and I met a couple of their neighbours who also have motorhomes, so a grand tour of the Fredrock Cafe was undertaken and comments about how each and every motorhome was set up differently and how neat it was to do the grand tours and get ideas for improvements and alterations. Thanks to Jenny for the lovely lunch and after a 32 point turn around I left Levin and headed north to a new POP in Foxton for the night. I was the second name in the book. My hosts Wendy and Brian are long term motorhomers and have a great POP set up. They are lovely people and are looking forward to their next three weeks on the road in October. My thanks to them for their POP, it is not in the book, but is on the website, site ID 9522 called DIDYOUBRINGYOURGROGALONG.

After a lovely afternoon cuppa with Wendy and Brian, I headed out to the bus and had a lovely quiet night.

After bidding Wendy adieu, I headed off towards Palmerston North and set up at Pat and Peter’s. They are expecting the roofing guys Monday or Tuesday to come and reroof their house, garage and carport over the next few days so I am parked on the lawn out of the way. I offered to park out on the street and got a clip around the ear from Pat for my troubles.

After doing some washing I was given Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel, Personal. An interesting and fun read if you enjoy Jack Reacher, it was up to his normal high standard. I missed the wry humour that is written in the book when I watched the movie. Somehow the movie didn’t really do it for me, not just because the lead character was played by completely the wrong actor, but it was Hollywood’ised and failed to reach my rather high expectations. After reading such a well written and very descriptive series of novels, you end up with some pretty vivid images and the movie came nowhere near.

For those of you who are interested in my flyscreens on the front door, the Warehouse is currently advertising magnetic flyscreens on the radio. I am heading to get a new pair tomorrow so will let you know how good they seem. Mine are starting to get a bit battered around.

I have a rather full week ahead, helping Pat and Peter in various ways and getting ready for my workshop on Friday so am looking forward to sitting still for the rest of the week and then a run through to Auckland to get there by Tuesday for my surgery (minor) on Wednesday.

Safe travels everyone.

Winter in Wellington

I am sitting here at Waikanae River Mouth Carpark after an interesting week in Wellington, the lovely capital city of New Zealand.
I arrived on Sunday in Upper Hutt to visit with the daughter of the friends I had left the Fredrock Cafe with in Palmerston North. I parked outside her place as I couldn’t fit under the power lines across her driveway.

So I had a lovely time there, ended up helping her fit two new smoke detectors (didn’t know that they expired!) and also helped her install two emergency water tanks. I was a great time talking over some interesting times in our past lives. Very cathartic after the past few weeks.
So from there I moved down to the Petone Workingmen’s Club. The weather was fantastic as only Wellington can be in Winter.

I went for a wander through Petone, found where the train station was at Ava, the closest to where I was staying and then wandered along the foreshore before heading back through the centre of town and doing my civic duty on the way by casting my vote at the library.
After competing the reason for my journey to Wellington at this point, the biennial meeting for the Training Committee, I headed out of town to the lovely Ngatitoa Domain at Paremata, where I spent a lovely quiet night. This morning the weather decided that it was going to change and it was clod, blustery and then the rain started, so I up’d stakes and headed northwards to where I am in Waikanae.  Tomorrow I may well end up as far as Levin where I hope to catch up with the Romany Ramblers again, on my way back to Palmerston North.
The weather here in Waikanae is overcast but not raining and I seem to have left the wind behind as well, so went for a lovely walk along the river to the beach and back.

		Waikanae VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

That is Kapiti Island in the distance off the beach. I have been told that I need to kayak out to the northern end of the island and then head north for about 300m and there is great snapper fishing around there. Not sure if it will be this trip as the weather is packing up for the next couple of days. Still it will be there for next time.
So a quiet day bird watching on the river and reading.
Safe travels everyone.

Old Friends and Farewell to Family

It has been an interesting time this past week. I have done things that I never thought I would do, helped my sister Lorna with the funeral for her husband Gary after his very unexpected and sudden death on Tuesday August 19.

Again I found myself creating funeral programmes and videos for yet another family member. I suppose that it will get all of us eventually and I must say that having Gary at home for the couple of days was a very interesting exercise for a family that has never done that before. It was a great way to begin the farewell process and having the grandchildren write and draw messages to Grandad on the inside of the lid of his casket was just a great experience. It looked great when they had finished. It was a real eye opener to see the grandchildren interacting with Gary as he lay on the bed. We need to stop putting adult thought processes into how we think kids might behave under these sort of circumstances.

So after spending a few days helping Lorna get the paperwork and other necessities under way I flew back to Palmerston North where the Fredrock Cafe had been sitting at Pat and Peter’s. Pat and Peter are very old friends who are related to my first wife. I had dropped in to say hello before finding somewhere to park up for the week, and Pat told me that I could park up their driveway as she wasn’t able to drive due to her cataract operation not being as successful as she had hoped for and that she was going into hospital again on the 4th to get it redone, so I was welcome to park there. I made sure that I changed over to a full bottle of gas for the fridge and all was good. I used about 4.5kg out of a 9kg bottle for the 8 days I was away. Not bad I thought.

So on my return I stayed the night and caught up with them all and then headed over to Himatangi Beach for the night, staying at a POP. I did get the kayak down as the weather was gorgeous and the swell was almost non-existent. I must say that it was pretty obvious that it was whitebait season, but very little in the way of fish. Had one strike on the way out but it wasn’t that interested in being eaten. After talking to a local later, it appears that the shellfish beds have been plundered and the fish populations have disappeared. The locals have made inroads towards righting this but it will take time to replenish the stocks.

After saying thanks to my hosts this morning I headed off down towards Otaki, stopping at the farmers market in Foxton and getting some beetroot and kiwifruit. I also bought a pair of new oven cloths.

They are lovely and thick and beautifully quilted. They are nicely patterned and wont show as many marks.

So after a quick look at Foxton beach

		Foxton Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

complete with 30km sign down on the beach…I headed back to have a closer look at the windmill, but unfortunately it wasn’t open.

It is huge and I’d love to see it working.

So from there I headed through to Otaki to a POP there which is nestled in the middle of an amazing park, full of birds, animals and amazing Indonesian statuary.

		Birds VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

		Friendly Deer VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

		Statuary VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Tomorrow I will be heading in to Upper Hutt to catch up with Pat and Peter’s daughter. From there I will park up at Paremata and travel by train into Wellington to catch up with friends and attend my meeting then it is back to Palmerston North for the 12th to deliver my workshop on Effective Community Education.

Heavy heart

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post from Martin as I get ready to fly back to Whangarei to support my sister Lorna Grose and her family after the unexpected and tragic death of her husband Gary early this morning.

That pic is Gary and his daughter Tracy at her wedding.

Gary has been in a wheelchair for many years after an accident involving a truck, a concrete slab and Gary. He had been in hospital for some adjustments and unfortunately had a bad turn and did not survive.

My heart goes out to my sister Lorna as this will be a very difficult time for her, even though the wider family is rallying around to support them all.

((((((((((((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))) to Lorna, Tony, David and Tracy at this time.

I will be offline for a week or so as I head up to support them at this sad time.

Please travel safely everyone.

Uncle Fredrock.

Whanganui

After a glorious sunset last evening

which I really didn’t manage to get successfully, and a quite chilly night, I left Waiinu Beach and headed down to Kai Iwi for a look see…

		Kai Iwi Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It is very interesting coming across a second place with the same name. For me Kai Iwi will be the lakes north of Dargaville. This was an interesting beach with a couple of rivers/streams either side, making for some nice views.

Decided to move on and headed through to Whanganui. I stopped at the Bridgestone tyre place to check on new front tyres and an alignment as the CoF guy said that they would need replacing soon. The good ones will cost me $1300 each…..*sighs* but we are not going that high.

So tomorrow booked in for two new tyres and an alignment.

Just had a cuppa with a friend that I haven’t seen since intermediate school sometime in the 70’s and it was great to catch up while I’m here in Whanganui.

Nice being here even though it is a Motorhome Friendly Town, there is some interesting signage…

It depends on who you talk to as to exactly what these signs mean. I believe the ladies from the iSite who believe that it is campervans and motorhomes only parked for a max of 60 mins. But the parks have been full for most of the day with cars…  go figure!

But the beauty of Whanganui is that you can freedom camp anywhere you like around the town if you are self contained.

So safe travels and see what tomorrow brings…mmm bike ride, kayak or walk??